Walter Watson’s The
Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism (1985, second
edition 1993) is at once modest and hugely ambitious in its project. In this work of less than two hundred pages the
history of Western philosophy, plus that of natural science and elements of literature
and Eastern philosophy, are synthesised within an architectonic. The range of thinkers which span the extremes
of opposing views is wide indeed. Yet Watson
proclaims the standpoint of ‘the new pluralism’. No theory is superior to any other; all are
included and recognised as ‘archic variables’ or basic possibilities of thought.

We must consider whether this vast construction achieves more
than excellence in scholarship and exegesis.
Does this pluralistic architectonic undermine the ability of philosophy
or any other disciplines to ‘make a difference’ if all their efforts have equal
value? Is this a ‘levelling down’ of thought
that neglects the real genesis and energy of this activity? If all positions are equal, are they not
equally impotent in their ability to make progress or ‘stand their ground’, to
resist reactive forces and realise the potential of thought in the world?

Watson starts with diversity as something continuous in the
history of philosophy. His
architectonic must realise the implications of diversity and show that the
differences between philosophies are non-oppositional. A key claim in Watson’s approach to
architectonics is that different philosophies are incompatible only insofar as
we need to use one system of thought at a time. Just as we cannot use both the
metric and decimal systems of measurement to grasp and ‘mark out’ the world, so
we cannot use both empiricist and rationalist principles to do philosophy. This leads Watson to the arbitrariness of
foundational philosophical decisions by analogy with the decision between
inches and centimetres. We have to make
this choice in order to think just as we have to make a choice between systems
of measurement in order to measure anything and understand the dimensions of
objects and spaces. This judgement is at
once foundational for purposeful and constructive activity, and utterly
arbitrary. Thus we have the figure of
the architectonic thinker making an arbitrary choice in a radically subjective
foundational gesture. This will have
implications for Watson’s attempt to found a pluralism of all philosophical
positions. If the subject's
interpretation is primary, questions arise about assuming the subject as a starting
point. If our position is that of a
monistic materialist, shouldn’t we seek to account for the emergence of a
subject rather than beginning by assuming its simple existence? We will return to this point. What exactly is chosen so arbitrarily in the
subject’s decision about how to interpret the world?

Watson’s method is to take account of the different
principles from which philosophies start and on which they depend. This will produce an understanding of the
multiplicity of approaches and a widening of the horizon of possibilities. It also has cross-disciplinary implications:

‘Further, since the special arts and
sciences are particular embodiments of philosophic principles,a pluralism at
the level of philosophy implies the possibility of a similar pluralism at the
level of thespecial arts and sciences’. (Watson 1993: xiv)

In this architectonic, the different approaches of arts and
sciences cannot be resolved by appealing to the way the world is. Instead it is different approaches,
frameworks, styles or paradigms that determine how we see the world and reflect
fundamental philosophical differences.
Philosophic principles also found other disciplines. They include Creative Principles. These are initiating, arbitrary powers (ibid:
103). For Watson these are possibilities
of thought exemplified in the Book of Genesis and its account of creation but
reactivated in Heidegger's Being and Time
where the God and human of Genesis become Being and Dasein (ibid: 110). These
are the co-creators. Another case is
Elementary Principles which again have a huge range in Watson's reading of the
history of thought. They are embodied by
Plotinus' the One, Nietzsche's Will to Power and Freud's psychic energy (ibid: 117,
123). For Freud and Nietzsche it is a
conflict of elemental forces that is manifested in our thought and experience. For Plotinus it is a spiritual, non-material
unity that is elementary.

In contrast to both Creative and Elementary Principles,
Comprehensive Principles envisage the design of the whole and its functioning. An example is Plato’s dialogues because each shows
a different way in which the Comprehensive Principle of the Good causes
functioning (ibid: 128). On this
reading, the harmony of both psyche
and polis in the Republic is the result of each part of these structures functioning
according to the Idea of the Good.
Finally, we have Reflexive Principles.
Here we do not look for a cause of functioning, such as a transcendent
Idea, but make functioning the cause of itself (ibid: 136). The sciences established by Aristotle are
governed by Reflexive Principles because these actualise themselves through disciplinary
activities. The motion studied by
natural science actualises the principle that initiates this intellectual
endeavour (ibid: 138). Likewise,
metaphysics is ‘thought thinking itself’, it actualises the principle that
founds it. We do not look beyond the
activity that is the genesis of these sciences to account for them. This strategy allows Watson to visit a
dizzying array of philosophies, scientific theories and artistic practices, uncovering
in each an ‘archic variable’ that in every case organises, unifies and shines
forth in its explanatory power and intellectual satisfaction. There is nothing lacking in these principles
but what about their relations with one another? What about the encounters and disputations
that characterise the history of thought and leave their mark?

The approach Watson takes to architectonics is based upon
some major claims. We saw that he
assumes the existence of a subject capable of making judgements about the
interpretation of reality as arbitrary as those between different systems of
measurements. Such undetermined
judgements are unconditioned by forces that certain thinkers consider to be necessary
conditions of thought and its judgements.
Watson also moves to undermine the apparent force and importance of
disagreements in the history of philosophy.
He does this by again appealing to the adequacy of judgements and in
particular the exemplary ability and reputation of the subjects who judge. Having named some famous disputants on either
side of a debate, Watson argues that with such names on either side ‘… who can
suppose that one of these groups must be simply wrong? Our initial thought that the greatest wisdom
enforces the most profound pluralism seems sufficiently confirmed even in this
single comparison’ (ibid: 57). The
reputation and excellence of judging subjects confirms the adequacy of
arbitrary judgements about how to interpret the world. Yet many thinkers have recognised the worth
of both sides in a disputation without drawing from this the equality of
different positions. Hegel’s system
advances by subsuming both sides in a dialectic where the common element,
absolute spirit, is found in both thesis and antithesis. Likewise, a reduction of the non-material to
the material recognises what it reduces but is clear in its reduction of what
appears to be non-material to fully material processes and structures. Why should a pantheon of opposed but
brilliant minds lead us to embrace pluralism?

In order to make his case, Watson formulates a concept of
reciprocal priority in order to capture the equality and parity of different
philosophies. This is based on the idea
that every approach can include all the others (ibid: 69). As such they are 'reciprocally prior' to one
another. They are equally prior to one
another because they make it possible for each other to have priority. Thus, it is only because material realities can
include non-material realities that we can range over reality giving satisfying
material explanations. We are free to
choose materialism as we are free to choose centimetres or inches. Our ability to incorporate other approaches
to reality equalises them all in an equal relation of reciprocal priority. Any philosophy embodies an ‘archic profile’ that
is able to include all other philosophies and their results (ibid: 149). We can affirm each philosophy: ‘Each of the realities will then include the
others, and be a reality of realities’ (ibid: 42). Yet, this affirmation does not involve a
negation of any other philosophy. It
seems that all philosophies join in a common project of realising the
possibilities of thought by expanding to include everything that can be thought
without denying the ability of other approaches to do the very same thing. Does this all-embracing conception give us
any grip upon the reality of thought and its dynamics over centuries of
disputation and apparent conflict over reality?
Do we keep hold of the sharp divisions between philosophies that seem to
range across the history of thought, such as when Speculative Realists reject
transcendental philosophy in a critical judgement that energises their
expansive system building?

For Watson the history of philosophy represents a cycle of
shifts between three epochs: the ontic, the epistemic and the semantic (ibid: 5). Thus the architectonic thinker does not, as is
the case with David Casper Friedrich’s painting of ‘The Wayfarer Above the Sea
of Fog’ (c. 1818), stand in the face a completely undetermined landscape. They
exist within an epoch which focuses upon either being, knowing or meaning until
problems and contradictions build up and initiate a paradigm shift. Watson locates his own work in this
all-encompassing process: ‘… here as throughout
we are working in a semantic context and seeking causes internal to the text’ (ibid:
101). This text was first published in
1985 and we could locate a return to what Watson calls an ontic epoch in the
work of Alain Badiou and the loose grouping of thinkers often referred to as
Speculative Realists. Founding gestures
in these systems include a rejection of both language and text based
philosophy, and of the Kantian legacy of epistemic conditions of thought. This might be described as a decisive break
with the current situation, something that for thinkers like Badiou is
necessary to account for change. Watson finds
fertile ground in his own epoch for an architectonics of meaning because such
eras embrace the diversity of philosophies.
Ontic and epistemic epochs don’t bring this ‘multiplicity of doctrines’ to
the fore as semantic ones do (ibid: 10). For Watson his conception of architectonics
is appropriate to the semantic epoch which he inhabits. An architectonics of being or knowledge would
reduce semantics and meaning-creation to being or knowing. Watson finds that ontic epochs have produced
and elaborated Aristotle’s Metaphysics
with its architectonic of being. Recurring
epistemic epochs can develop the architectonics of knowing set out in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Yet where does this leave Watson’s claims
about epochs other than his own? Has he
not confined himself to a semantic epoch and undermined his claims about the
‘archic elements’ that account for the emergence of different architectonics
within different epochs? Does he have
the perspective and the resources to construct this account of architectonics
in all its forms, this architectonic of
architectonics? Is not his approach
in the end semantic, all too semantic?

In his Architectonics
of Meaning Watson seeks to draw upon the energy produced by the
multiplicity of possibilities and constructions he locates across different
epochs and philosophies. Yet we’ve
suggested that he privileges semantics even while claiming to establish
pluralism. For Watson the first
principles that have always concerned philosophy are conceived as ‘… causes of
the functioning of texts, and as reciprocally prior values of variables common
to all texts’ (ibid: 13). This emphasis
within Watson’s architectonic seems to limit its explanatory power and grasp on
the dynamics of thought. Other epochs, ontic and epistemic, demand that
we ‘take a stand’ on what is real or what is a condition of knowledge. Yet in Watson’s architectonic of meaning
there isn’t even any real friction between positions, nothing against which we
can proclaim and defend our position. It
is as if the solidity of different systems melts away in a celebration of
creativity and difference.
Architectonics does not provide a solid ground for ‘taking a stand’, for
the fidelity that for Badiou is the practical foundation of events in the face
of their lack of any foundation or justification in the current state of the
situation. For many thinkers a
non-semantic reality or structure is at stake.
It is the things themselves or the most basic concepts that matter. For example, Ray Brassier's nihilistic
project seems to resist incorporation into Watson’s conception because, for
this thinker, ‘… it is precisely the extinction of meaning that clears the way
for the intelligibility of extinction’ (Brassier 2007, p. 238).[1] Such philosophy is always against other
philosophies and it is hard to make sense of such projects in any other
way. Such philosophies need an Other and this must be a genuine Other rather than an illusory opponent
subsumed in an equality of ‘reciprocal priority’. Without this friction and resistance, can we
explain how such positions emerge in the first place? Watson gives us an unbalanced architectonic
which privileges a certain dynamic of meaning and interpretation in a way that
leaves it unable to account for quite different dynamics such as critique and
resistance to alternatives.

We must consider the self-awareness and modesty shown by
Watson about his own position in the final sentence of The Architectonics of Meaning:
‘The insight presented here into the archic determinants of our thought,
an insight appropriate to a semantic
epoch, is one further step in the progressive realization of thought by
itself’ (Watson 1993: 170). This appropriateness to a semantic epoch is
recognised and yet not seen as undermining the conception of architectonics in
general as it is presented here. Watson envisages
other epochs uncovering and celebrating the pluralism that semantic epochs are
best at appreciating. They would come to
the same conclusion that because we can incorporate different views of reality within
one another their reciprocal priority is established. Yet wouldn’t they take this as a dispute over
the ability of philosophies to produce an account that has the greatest explanatory
power, empirical authenticity and logical rigor? Would they not lay claim to being closer to
reality, to the basic elements of being or the basic concepts of knowledge? It is hard to see how we can make sense of
Watson’s conception of architectonics in these contexts. In these landscapes of thought there are oppositions
and divisions which reflect non-semantic reality and the problems it poses for
us. Yet for Watson there seems to be no outside of thought, no other to the diversity of mutually
inclusive possibilities he celebrates, which could shock thought into action
and explain why forceful and divisive philosophies emerge in the first place.

In Water Watson’s Architectonics
of Meaning we find that a multitude of philosophical systems are related
and categorized in enlightening ways.
Drawing these connections leads us to a conception of architectonics as
a pluralism founded upon the reciprocal priority of apparently opposed and
incompatible world views. Yet we’ve been
unable to account for the oppositional relations that mark out fields of
philosophical activity and conflict using this model of architectonics. This is particularly the case with political
ontologies. For example, Marxism is
forceful in its critique of non-material realities since it conceives of them
as effects of structures that subject human beings to alienation and exploitation. Since Watson’s book was published positions
have been developed that draw energy from a critique of positions like
his. Watson calls for us to experiment
with pluralism, to try to set aside the attempt to destroy principles different
from our own. This will produce
assimilation and ‘… the irreducible oppositions of principle [will] recede into
the background’ (ibid: x). Yet for a
political ontology it is the resistance of human subjects and communities that
is at stake. It genuinely matters that
reality should be understood in certain ways if this is a condition of a
certain praxis involving resistance to oppression and injustice.[2] If we return to Watson’s inaugural gesture –
an arbitrary subjective judgement on the model of choosing a system of
measurement – we find this model of judgement to be at fault. Rather than a forceful judgement based on the
necessity of ‘taking a stand’, we have choice between equal possibilities in
which nothing is at stake. It is hard to
see how thought finds its energy without inequality and opposition. There is no account or genesis of thought
because the alternatives are equally valid and there is no impetus to develop
one or the other. In the end we find
that Watson’s conception of architectonics does not carry across to the other
epochs he describes. It makes no sense
to thinkers who seek to build against,
or in the face of, opposing
doctrines, to resist alternatives, to change the current state of things
because it is not in fact equal to the truth of being in which they place their
faith.

Bibliography

Brassier, Ray (2015), ‘Ray Brassier interviewed by Marcin
Rychter - I am a nihilist because I still believe in truth’, Kronos, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.kronos.org.pl/index.php?23151,896
[date accessed: 20th February 2016].— (2007), Nihil Unbound:
Enlightenment
and Extinction, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Hallward, Peter (2006), Out of this World: Deleuze and the
Philosophy of Creation, London and New York: Verso.Nancy, Jean-Luc (1993), The
Birth to Presence, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Watson, Walter (1993), The
Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism, 2nd
edn., Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

[1] Brassier
adds: ‘…philosophy is neither a medium
of affirmation nor a source of justification, but rather the organon of
extinction’ (ibid, 239). Elsewhere he
links his nihilism to other disciplines:
‘… a project is now underway to understand and explain human
consciousness in terms that are compatible with the natural sciences, such that
the meanings generated by consciousness can themselves be understood and
explained as the products of purposeless but perfectly intelligible processes,
which are at once neurobiological and sociohistorical’ (Brassier 2015).

[2] For
example, Peter Hallward’s critique of continental philosophy has in its sites thinkers
like Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy.
They are said to have neglected the actual, political and concrete
situations in which we find ourselves in favour of the virtual production of reality. In the case of Nancy it is the privileging of
presencing over presence that is at
fault: ‘Presence is what is born, and
does not cease being born. Of it and to
it there is birth, and only birth’. (Nancy 1993: 2). See Hallward 2006 for a critique of Deleuze’s
alleged privileging of the virtual over the actual and its concerns.

Walter Watson’s The
Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism (1985, second
edition 1993) is at once modest and hugely ambitious in its project. In this work of less than two hundred pages the
history of Western philosophy, plus that of natural science and elements of literature
and Eastern philosophy, are synthesised within an architectonic. The range of thinkers which span the extremes
of opposing views is wide indeed. Yet Watson
proclaims the standpoint of ‘the new pluralism’. No theory is superior to any other; all are
included and recognised as ‘archic variables’ or basic possibilities of thought.

We must consider whether this vast construction achieves more
than excellence in scholarship and exegesis.
Does this pluralistic architectonic undermine the ability of philosophy
or any other disciplines to ‘make a difference’ if all their efforts have equal
value? Is this a ‘levelling down’ of thought
that neglects the real genesis and energy of this activity? If all positions are equal, are they not
equally impotent in their ability to make progress or ‘stand their ground’, to
resist reactive forces and realise the potential of thought in the world?

Watson starts with diversity as something continuous in the
history of philosophy. His
architectonic must realise the implications of diversity and show that the
differences between philosophies are non-oppositional. A key claim in Watson’s approach to
architectonics is that different philosophies are incompatible only insofar as
we need to use one system of thought at a time. Just as we cannot use both the
metric and decimal systems of measurement to grasp and ‘mark out’ the world, so
we cannot use both empiricist and rationalist principles to do philosophy. This leads Watson to the arbitrariness of
foundational philosophical decisions by analogy with the decision between
inches and centimetres. We have to make
this choice in order to think just as we have to make a choice between systems
of measurement in order to measure anything and understand the dimensions of
objects and spaces. This judgement is at
once foundational for purposeful and constructive activity, and utterly
arbitrary. Thus we have the figure of
the architectonic thinker making an arbitrary choice in a radically subjective
foundational gesture. This will have
implications for Watson’s attempt to found a pluralism of all philosophical
positions. If the subject's
interpretation is primary, questions arise about assuming the subject as a starting
point. If our position is that of a
monistic materialist, shouldn’t we seek to account for the emergence of a
subject rather than beginning by assuming its simple existence? We will return to this point. What exactly is chosen so arbitrarily in the
subject’s decision about how to interpret the world?

Watson’s method is to take account of the different
principles from which philosophies start and on which they depend. This will produce an understanding of the
multiplicity of approaches and a widening of the horizon of possibilities. It also has cross-disciplinary implications:

‘Further, since the special arts and
sciences are particular embodiments of philosophic principles,a pluralism at
the level of philosophy implies the possibility of a similar pluralism at the
level of thespecial arts and sciences’. (Watson 1993: xiv)

In this architectonic, the different approaches of arts and
sciences cannot be resolved by appealing to the way the world is. Instead it is different approaches,
frameworks, styles or paradigms that determine how we see the world and reflect
fundamental philosophical differences.
Philosophic principles also found other disciplines. They include Creative Principles. These are initiating, arbitrary powers (ibid:
103). For Watson these are possibilities
of thought exemplified in the Book of Genesis and its account of creation but
reactivated in Heidegger's Being and Time
where the God and human of Genesis become Being and Dasein (ibid: 110). These
are the co-creators. Another case is
Elementary Principles which again have a huge range in Watson's reading of the
history of thought. They are embodied by
Plotinus' the One, Nietzsche's Will to Power and Freud's psychic energy (ibid: 117,
123). For Freud and Nietzsche it is a
conflict of elemental forces that is manifested in our thought and experience. For Plotinus it is a spiritual, non-material
unity that is elementary.

In contrast to both Creative and Elementary Principles,
Comprehensive Principles envisage the design of the whole and its functioning. An example is Plato’s dialogues because each shows
a different way in which the Comprehensive Principle of the Good causes
functioning (ibid: 128). On this
reading, the harmony of both psyche
and polis in the Republic is the result of each part of these structures functioning
according to the Idea of the Good.
Finally, we have Reflexive Principles.
Here we do not look for a cause of functioning, such as a transcendent
Idea, but make functioning the cause of itself (ibid: 136). The sciences established by Aristotle are
governed by Reflexive Principles because these actualise themselves through disciplinary
activities. The motion studied by
natural science actualises the principle that initiates this intellectual
endeavour (ibid: 138). Likewise,
metaphysics is ‘thought thinking itself’, it actualises the principle that
founds it. We do not look beyond the
activity that is the genesis of these sciences to account for them. This strategy allows Watson to visit a
dizzying array of philosophies, scientific theories and artistic practices, uncovering
in each an ‘archic variable’ that in every case organises, unifies and shines
forth in its explanatory power and intellectual satisfaction. There is nothing lacking in these principles
but what about their relations with one another? What about the encounters and disputations
that characterise the history of thought and leave their mark?

The approach Watson takes to architectonics is based upon
some major claims. We saw that he
assumes the existence of a subject capable of making judgements about the
interpretation of reality as arbitrary as those between different systems of
measurements. Such undetermined
judgements are unconditioned by forces that certain thinkers consider to be necessary
conditions of thought and its judgements.
Watson also moves to undermine the apparent force and importance of
disagreements in the history of philosophy.
He does this by again appealing to the adequacy of judgements and in
particular the exemplary ability and reputation of the subjects who judge. Having named some famous disputants on either
side of a debate, Watson argues that with such names on either side ‘… who can
suppose that one of these groups must be simply wrong? Our initial thought that the greatest wisdom
enforces the most profound pluralism seems sufficiently confirmed even in this
single comparison’ (ibid: 57). The
reputation and excellence of judging subjects confirms the adequacy of
arbitrary judgements about how to interpret the world. Yet many thinkers have recognised the worth
of both sides in a disputation without drawing from this the equality of
different positions. Hegel’s system
advances by subsuming both sides in a dialectic where the common element,
absolute spirit, is found in both thesis and antithesis. Likewise, a reduction of the non-material to
the material recognises what it reduces but is clear in its reduction of what
appears to be non-material to fully material processes and structures. Why should a pantheon of opposed but
brilliant minds lead us to embrace pluralism?

In order to make his case, Watson formulates a concept of
reciprocal priority in order to capture the equality and parity of different
philosophies. This is based on the idea
that every approach can include all the others (ibid: 69). As such they are 'reciprocally prior' to one
another. They are equally prior to one
another because they make it possible for each other to have priority. Thus, it is only because material realities can
include non-material realities that we can range over reality giving satisfying
material explanations. We are free to
choose materialism as we are free to choose centimetres or inches. Our ability to incorporate other approaches
to reality equalises them all in an equal relation of reciprocal priority. Any philosophy embodies an ‘archic profile’ that
is able to include all other philosophies and their results (ibid: 149). We can affirm each philosophy: ‘Each of the realities will then include the
others, and be a reality of realities’ (ibid: 42). Yet, this affirmation does not involve a
negation of any other philosophy. It
seems that all philosophies join in a common project of realising the
possibilities of thought by expanding to include everything that can be thought
without denying the ability of other approaches to do the very same thing. Does this all-embracing conception give us
any grip upon the reality of thought and its dynamics over centuries of
disputation and apparent conflict over reality?
Do we keep hold of the sharp divisions between philosophies that seem to
range across the history of thought, such as when Speculative Realists reject
transcendental philosophy in a critical judgement that energises their
expansive system building?

For Watson the history of philosophy represents a cycle of
shifts between three epochs: the ontic, the epistemic and the semantic (ibid: 5). Thus the architectonic thinker does not, as is
the case with David Casper Friedrich’s painting of ‘The Wayfarer Above the Sea
of Fog’ (c. 1818), stand in the face a completely undetermined landscape. They
exist within an epoch which focuses upon either being, knowing or meaning until
problems and contradictions build up and initiate a paradigm shift. Watson locates his own work in this
all-encompassing process: ‘… here as throughout
we are working in a semantic context and seeking causes internal to the text’ (ibid:
101). This text was first published in
1985 and we could locate a return to what Watson calls an ontic epoch in the
work of Alain Badiou and the loose grouping of thinkers often referred to as
Speculative Realists. Founding gestures
in these systems include a rejection of both language and text based
philosophy, and of the Kantian legacy of epistemic conditions of thought. This might be described as a decisive break
with the current situation, something that for thinkers like Badiou is
necessary to account for change. Watson finds
fertile ground in his own epoch for an architectonics of meaning because such
eras embrace the diversity of philosophies.
Ontic and epistemic epochs don’t bring this ‘multiplicity of doctrines’ to
the fore as semantic ones do (ibid: 10). For Watson his conception of architectonics
is appropriate to the semantic epoch which he inhabits. An architectonics of being or knowledge would
reduce semantics and meaning-creation to being or knowing. Watson finds that ontic epochs have produced
and elaborated Aristotle’s Metaphysics
with its architectonic of being. Recurring
epistemic epochs can develop the architectonics of knowing set out in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Yet where does this leave Watson’s claims
about epochs other than his own? Has he
not confined himself to a semantic epoch and undermined his claims about the
‘archic elements’ that account for the emergence of different architectonics
within different epochs? Does he have
the perspective and the resources to construct this account of architectonics
in all its forms, this architectonic of
architectonics? Is not his approach
in the end semantic, all too semantic?

In his Architectonics
of Meaning Watson seeks to draw upon the energy produced by the
multiplicity of possibilities and constructions he locates across different
epochs and philosophies. Yet we’ve
suggested that he privileges semantics even while claiming to establish
pluralism. For Watson the first
principles that have always concerned philosophy are conceived as ‘… causes of
the functioning of texts, and as reciprocally prior values of variables common
to all texts’ (ibid: 13). This emphasis
within Watson’s architectonic seems to limit its explanatory power and grasp on
the dynamics of thought. Other epochs, ontic and epistemic, demand that
we ‘take a stand’ on what is real or what is a condition of knowledge. Yet in Watson’s architectonic of meaning
there isn’t even any real friction between positions, nothing against which we
can proclaim and defend our position. It
is as if the solidity of different systems melts away in a celebration of
creativity and difference.
Architectonics does not provide a solid ground for ‘taking a stand’, for
the fidelity that for Badiou is the practical foundation of events in the face
of their lack of any foundation or justification in the current state of the
situation. For many thinkers a
non-semantic reality or structure is at stake.
It is the things themselves or the most basic concepts that matter. For example, Ray Brassier's nihilistic
project seems to resist incorporation into Watson’s conception because, for
this thinker, ‘… it is precisely the extinction of meaning that clears the way
for the intelligibility of extinction’ (Brassier 2007, p. 238).[1] Such philosophy is always against other
philosophies and it is hard to make sense of such projects in any other
way. Such philosophies need an Other and this must be a genuine Other rather than an illusory opponent
subsumed in an equality of ‘reciprocal priority’. Without this friction and resistance, can we
explain how such positions emerge in the first place? Watson gives us an unbalanced architectonic
which privileges a certain dynamic of meaning and interpretation in a way that
leaves it unable to account for quite different dynamics such as critique and
resistance to alternatives.

We must consider the self-awareness and modesty shown by
Watson about his own position in the final sentence of The Architectonics of Meaning:
‘The insight presented here into the archic determinants of our thought,
an insight appropriate to a semantic
epoch, is one further step in the progressive realization of thought by
itself’ (Watson 1993: 170). This appropriateness to a semantic epoch is
recognised and yet not seen as undermining the conception of architectonics in
general as it is presented here. Watson envisages
other epochs uncovering and celebrating the pluralism that semantic epochs are
best at appreciating. They would come to
the same conclusion that because we can incorporate different views of reality within
one another their reciprocal priority is established. Yet wouldn’t they take this as a dispute over
the ability of philosophies to produce an account that has the greatest explanatory
power, empirical authenticity and logical rigor? Would they not lay claim to being closer to
reality, to the basic elements of being or the basic concepts of knowledge? It is hard to see how we can make sense of
Watson’s conception of architectonics in these contexts. In these landscapes of thought there are oppositions
and divisions which reflect non-semantic reality and the problems it poses for
us. Yet for Watson there seems to be no outside of thought, no other to the diversity of mutually
inclusive possibilities he celebrates, which could shock thought into action
and explain why forceful and divisive philosophies emerge in the first place.

In Water Watson’s Architectonics
of Meaning we find that a multitude of philosophical systems are related
and categorized in enlightening ways.
Drawing these connections leads us to a conception of architectonics as
a pluralism founded upon the reciprocal priority of apparently opposed and
incompatible world views. Yet we’ve been
unable to account for the oppositional relations that mark out fields of
philosophical activity and conflict using this model of architectonics. This is particularly the case with political
ontologies. For example, Marxism is
forceful in its critique of non-material realities since it conceives of them
as effects of structures that subject human beings to alienation and exploitation. Since Watson’s book was published positions
have been developed that draw energy from a critique of positions like
his. Watson calls for us to experiment
with pluralism, to try to set aside the attempt to destroy principles different
from our own. This will produce
assimilation and ‘… the irreducible oppositions of principle [will] recede into
the background’ (ibid: x). Yet for a
political ontology it is the resistance of human subjects and communities that
is at stake. It genuinely matters that
reality should be understood in certain ways if this is a condition of a
certain praxis involving resistance to oppression and injustice.[2] If we return to Watson’s inaugural gesture –
an arbitrary subjective judgement on the model of choosing a system of
measurement – we find this model of judgement to be at fault. Rather than a forceful judgement based on the
necessity of ‘taking a stand’, we have choice between equal possibilities in
which nothing is at stake. It is hard to
see how thought finds its energy without inequality and opposition. There is no account or genesis of thought
because the alternatives are equally valid and there is no impetus to develop
one or the other. In the end we find
that Watson’s conception of architectonics does not carry across to the other
epochs he describes. It makes no sense
to thinkers who seek to build against,
or in the face of, opposing
doctrines, to resist alternatives, to change the current state of things
because it is not in fact equal to the truth of being in which they place their
faith.

Bibliography

Brassier, Ray (2015), ‘Ray Brassier interviewed by Marcin
Rychter - I am a nihilist because I still believe in truth’, Kronos, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.kronos.org.pl/index.php?23151,896
[date accessed: 20th February 2016].— (2007), Nihil Unbound:
Enlightenment
and Extinction, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Hallward, Peter (2006), Out of this World: Deleuze and the
Philosophy of Creation, London and New York: Verso.Nancy, Jean-Luc (1993), The
Birth to Presence, Stanford: Stanford University Press.Watson, Walter (1993), The
Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism, 2nd
edn., Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

[1] Brassier
adds: ‘…philosophy is neither a medium
of affirmation nor a source of justification, but rather the organon of
extinction’ (ibid, 239). Elsewhere he
links his nihilism to other disciplines:
‘… a project is now underway to understand and explain human
consciousness in terms that are compatible with the natural sciences, such that
the meanings generated by consciousness can themselves be understood and
explained as the products of purposeless but perfectly intelligible processes,
which are at once neurobiological and sociohistorical’ (Brassier 2015).

[2] For
example, Peter Hallward’s critique of continental philosophy has in its sites thinkers
like Gilles Deleuze and Jean-Luc Nancy.
They are said to have neglected the actual, political and concrete
situations in which we find ourselves in favour of the virtual production of reality. In the case of Nancy it is the privileging of
presencing over presence that is at
fault: ‘Presence is what is born, and
does not cease being born. Of it and to
it there is birth, and only birth’. (Nancy 1993: 2). See Hallward 2006 for a critique of Deleuze’s
alleged privileging of the virtual over the actual and its concerns.